The Streisand Effect

Just like the NFL, whose ratings have gone WAY DOWN, Nike is getting absolutely killed with anger and boycotts. I wonder if they had any idea that it would be this way? As far as the NFL is concerned, I just find it hard to watch, and always will, until they stand for the FLAG!
9:39 AM – Sep 5, 2018

Kaepernick remains unsigned and hasn’t played since 2016, but he started a movement that has polarized Americans. President Donald Trump has been critical of players for the protests.

One analyst expressed concerns about Nike’s ties with Kaepernick.

“Nike’s campaign will generate both attention and discussion which is, arguably, one of its central aims,” wrote Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, in a report Tuesday. “However, it is also a risky strategy in that it addresses, and appears to take sides on, a highly politicized issue.”

The ad could ultimately alienate customers and turn them to rivals’ products — which is not the purpose of a marketing campaign, Saunders said.

Kaepernick, 30, has been without a team since opting out of his San Francisco 49ers contract in March 2017. In 2016 he was an originator of protests by NFL players, targeting racial injustice and police brutality, which often involve kneeling during the pre-game playing of the national anthem.

Donald Trump has made the protests a key part of his appeal to his base, arguing that the players are disrespecting the anthem, the US flag and the military.

On Tuesday, the president told the rightwing website Daily Caller: “I think it’s a terrible message that [Nike] are sending and the purpose of them doing it, maybe there’s a reason for them doing it. But I think as far as sending a message, I think it’s a terrible message and a message that shouldn’t be sent. There’s no reason for it.”

He also said Nike paid him “a lot of rent” in New York and admitted that the protests and the Nike ad were “in another way … what this country is all about, that you have certain freedoms to do things that other people think you shouldn’t do”.

“But I personally am on a different side of it,” Trump said.

In the following days, the president pursued the issue via Twitter. On Wednesday, he wrote: “Just like the NFL, whose ratings have gone WAY DOWN, Nike is getting absolutely killed with anger and boycotts. I wonder if they had any idea that it would be this way? As far as the NFL is concerned, I just find it hard to watch, and always will, until they stand for the FLAG!”

Trump did not supply evidence for his claim of “anger and boycotts” but opposition to the company’s move was expressed widely and in some instances creatively on social media.

On Friday, the morning after the full version of the Nike ad played during the Philadelphia Eagles v Atlanta Falcons NFL season opener, the president asked: “What was Nike thinking?”

Edison Trends’ analysis suggested the company will be thinking its gambit has worked, allowing it to surf familiar controversy and create a “Trump bump” all of its own.

“Nike’s 2018 late summer sales show much the same trend as last year’s,” the company wrote, “with order volume decreasing slightly going into late August. The similarity decreases coming out of Labor Day weekend, however, with sales seeing a bigger bump on Monday and Tuesday than in the past.”

Edison Trends said its analysis was based on “anonymised and aggregated e-receipts from more than 3 million consumers”.